Key Concepts Key Concepts♦ Great teachers are aware of almost everything that happens in their classroom, and they know which situations demand immediate attention and which can wait for a more teachable moment.
♦ Effective teachers model self-control; their classroom management is grounded in their ability to manage their own behavior.
♦ Great teachers do not automatically react every time a student steps a little out of line.
♦ The great teacher has the ability to pay attention to students, to recognize and praise their achievements, and to overlook minor errors.
♦ High achievers put so much of themselves into what they do that any criticism, no matter how minor, can become a personal affront. This is true of both high-achieving students and high-achieving teachers.
Discussion Questions1. Why do great teachers ignore certain behaviors?
2. Why do most students misbehave?
3. What is the likely outcome when teachers continually nitpick about a student’s behavior? About a student’s academic performance?
4. In what ways does the information in this chapter relate specifically to high achievers?
5. How do great teachers balance the contradictory themes of ignoring certain behaviors and paying attention to those students who crave it?
Journal PromptThe author notes the advice of a friend who is a police officer: “You can look for trouble or you can look away.” Similarly, William James famously theorized, “The art of being wise is knowing what to overlook.” Take a moment to write your reactions to these two quotes as they relate to the classroom setting. What behaviors that often occur in the classroom should teachers regularly overlook? When should they go with the flow and when should they stop and take a stand? How do they determine which disturbances are trivial and should be ignored and which should be responded to? How can they respond without escalating the situation?
Group ActivitiesDivide participants into small groups of three or four. Have them review the following two lists suggesting when to ignore certain behaviors and when to intervene. After reading and discussing both lists thoroughly, have participants read the ten behaviors in the table below and determine which of these behaviors they would ignore and which require intervention. Each group will report back to the whole group. Compare and contrast group responses.
Pointers for when to ignore behavior:
♦ when the inappropriate behavior is unintentional or not likely to recur
♦ when the goal of the misbehavior is to gain the teacher’s attention
♦ when you want the behavior to decrease
♦ when there is nothing you can do
Pointers for when to intervene:
♦ when the misbehavior might cause physical danger or harm to yourself, the student, or others
♦ when a student disrupts the classroom
♦ when the misbehavior violates classroom rules or school policy
♦ when the misbehavior interferes with learning
♦ when the inappropriate behavior might spread to other students
Divide participants into groups of five to seven and have each group prepare a skit involving a classroom situation. In the skits, each group should include three student misbehaviors, two of which they think an effective teacher would ignore and one that they feel an effective teacher would deal with. In each presentation, have the “teacher” deal with all three behaviors. After each skit, have the other groups decide which of the three behaviors was the one that merited the teacher’s response.
ApplicationArrange for someone at your school to videotape you teaching for fifteen to thirty minutes. Review the tape and analyze your teaching behaviors, paying particular attention to the way in which you responded—or chose not to respond—to student misbehavior. Make a written record of the strengths and weaknesses you observed in your ability to maintain positive classroom management. Make a second videotape in several weeks and compare your findings.